I resisted watching Cars for the longest time..... until I had kids and they wanted to watch it. And so I watched it and thought it was much better than I thought it would be. It didn't stand up to Pixar's best, but it didn't completely suck, either. There were redeeming qualities and lessons to be learned. Fine.

But that sequel? That fucking sequel?!? If it were released by a competing studio as a satire of cash-grabbing sequels that play up the secondary characters of the first film while disregarding the main characters, the main setting, and any possible worthwhile lessons to teach kids, I'd laugh. But I didn't fucking laugh. That shit should have been direct-to-video at best. But even better, it should have been left in the nightmare of the writer who came up with it.

THAT should have been the implosion of Pixar. Burn the motherfucker down and start over from scratch.

Achievement Unlocked: TOTAL DOMINATION (Win a Werewolf Game without losing a single player on your team)

I think a TRAINS movie would probably involve all the train cars running around free, then an evil engineer links them all so that they have to spend their lives looking at the back end of the car in front of them and going wherever the engine wants to go.

I think a TRAINS movie would probably involve all the train cars running around free, then an evil engineer links them all so that they have to spend their lives looking at the back end of the car in front of them and going wherever the engine wants to go.

Borys Kit & Gregg Kilday wrote:The contrast couldn't have been more stark. On Nov. 22, Pixar Animation Studios laid off 67 employees, about 5 percent of its 1,200-person workforce, as the release of its next feature, The Good Dinosaur, was delayed 18 months to November 2015. That left Disney without a new Pixar movie on next year's schedule for the first time since 2005.

Just five days later, Walt Disney Animation Studios opened Frozen, its 53rd feature, in wide release and set a Thanksgiving weekend record with $93.6 million domestic -- topping Pixar's Toy Story 2 benchmark from 1999. The icy sisterhood tale established itself as a frontrunner for the animated feature Oscar, a category Pixar has dominated. Further underscoring the resurgence of WDAS, Frozen was accompanied by a new short, Get a Horse!, that could win the Oscar in that category.

It's a reversal of fortune of sorts, even as Pixar continues to dominate at the box office. (Its June release Monsters University took in $743.5 million worldwide, surpassing 2011's Cars 2, which grabbed nearly $560 million.) Critics have carped that the studio is relying too heavily on sequels and has lost some of its creative mojo. Meanwhile, WDAS, which long lagged behind Pixar in prestige and profit, has been on a hot streak since 2010's Tangled managed to appeal both to boys and princess-loving girls. "I think the studio has gone through something of a renaissance," Rich Moore, who directed WDAS' 2012 hit Wreck-It Ralph, told THR earlier this year.

Disney's $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar in 2006 put rival siblings under the same man, Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, working alongside Ed Catmull. Splitting time between Pixar in Emeryville, Calif., and Disney's Burbank lot, Lasseter gets credit for breathing life into WDAS, which stumbled through the 2000s with such flops as Home on the Range, Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons. But some question whether he is stretched too thin as his studios and other parts of the Disney empire, including consumer products and park design, vie for his attention.

Borrowing a page from Pixar, Lasseter is hands-on at WDAS. He gives extensive notes, pores over story reels and even does the first reading with actors and directors. Initially, Pixar animators worried that he was spending too much time at Disney, where he overhauled Bolt and Tangled. Now that the situation has stabilized, he divides his focus. "Both places think he spends too much time at the other place," says a friend. "That's the true telling point."

t Pixar, every project is workshopped through the so-called Brain Trust, the company's top leaders. If a movie encounters problems, the studio doesn't hesitate to boot directors midstream. Brenda Chapman was replaced by Mark Andrews on 2012's Brave, which won the Oscar. Dinosaur hit a wall when director Bob Peterson couldn't crack its third act. He was taken off the film, though he remains at Pixar.

WDAS has instituted a similar system called the Story Trust, but its meetings are considerably more polite, says one insider: "People are more concerned about ruffling feathers and hurting feelings." WDAS also might be more open to fresh talent. Agencies usually don't send writers to pitch Pixar, where most ideas are generated in-house and directors work their way up the ladder. At WDAS, by contrast, Jennifer Lee was an outsider brought in to work on Ralph then shifted to Frozen. Her suggestions reshaped the project, and she was upped to director with Chris Buck, which one insider says never would happen at Pixar.

WDAS has reached a point where it is developing its own star filmmakers, much as Pixar did with Pete Docter (Up) and Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo). Byron Howard, who helmed Tangled with Nathan Greno, is directing Zootopia for a March 2016 release. And the company's November 2014 film Big Hero 6, the first theatrical animated movie drawn from Marvel characters, is being handled by Don Hall, who directed 2011's Winnie the Pooh.

But Pixar hardly is down for the count, though. "Hollywood won't be happy until they have a big honking failure," snarks one observer, noting that Pixar's run of hits has yet to be duplicated. If Disney weren't exploiting its library for sequels, analysts would squawk that it is squandering resources. And so Finding Dory, a sequel to 2003's Finding Nemo, is coming in 2016.

Lasseter, who directed Cars and its poorly reviewed sequel, has defended the sequel strategy, saying good characters and a good story are what make good movies. Disney CEO Bob Iger, to whom Lasseter reports, is a big supporter of Pixar's sequel strategy and the box office it generates.

But three of the studio's next four releases will be originals. Docter is readying Inside Out, set in the mind of a preteen, for June 2015. A retooled Dinosaur will follow that November, then an untitled movie about the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead.

As part of a series of conversations with Fast Company to promote his new book Creativity Inc., Catmull said of the failed project, "Newt was another unlikely idea that wasn't working. When we gave it to somebody new [Pete Docter, director of Up], he said, 'I'll do it, but I have another idea altogether, which I think is better.' And we thought it was better too. That was the reason we didn't continue with Newt." (By the way, that other idea to which Catmull was referring is Pixar's Inside Out, which Docter is directing for a 2015 release.)

What's interesting to note here is that Docter took over Newt toward the end of its development, replacing Rydstrom. For Pixar, it's not uncommon for a more seasoned animation director to take over a troubled project. (For example, a similar approach was taken for Ratatouille, which had The Incredibles' Brad Bird sub for Jan Pinkava.)

Back in 2011, Pixar CCO John Lasseter said that Newt was cancelled for another reason -- that is, its story bared a striking resemblance to Blue Sky's Rio. In the end, it was probably a combination of these things that ultimately got Newt the ax.

Sophie Miskiw wrote:Pixar’s most eagerly awaited animated feature film is the sequel to Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, due out in November 2015. We may have quite a long time to wait for this one, but we’re certain it will be worth the wait. We’ve missed forgetful Dory, although probably not as much as Ellen DeGeneres has! Upon hearing the news Ellen, who provided her voice for Dory in 2003’s Finding Nemo, said “I have waited for this day for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. I’m not mad it took this long. I know the people at Pixar were busy creating Toy Story 16. But the time they took was worth it. The script is fantastic. And it has everything I loved about the first one: It’s got a lost of heart, it’s really funny, and the best part is - it’s got a lot more Dory.” We. Can’t. Wait.

I read the theory a while back and, though crazy and obviously false, is admirable for how thorough and creative it is. I know that I have no right to expect this, but I would love to see Pixar address the theory on film in some way.

Jim Hill wrote:Do your remember that scene from the original "Jurassic Park " where -- as that off-screen T-Rex stomped around the paddock which he was about to escape from -- his footfalls were so heavy that they actually cause ripples in those water glasses which Tim & Lexy are drinking from?

Well, Disney's decision to push back the release date of "The Good Dinosaur" from May 30, 2014 to November 25, 2015 is bound to cause some ripples too. But not in the ways that you might think.

Obviously, this is going to cause some upheaval on the Consumer Products side of things at The Walt Disney Company. If only because Mouse House reps have been meeting with & then signing contracts with licensees to produce "Good Dinosaur" products for the better part of two years now. All so -- once the Spring of next year arrives -- retailers around the world would then have been able to sell t-shirts, action figures & plush toys that looked just like Arlo, Spot, Cliff, Ivy and Forest do in this movie. And now because the release date of this particular Pixar production has been pushed back by 18 months ... Well, that then means there are suddenly a whole lot of people who create products for WalMart, Target et all who have to scramble around and make other plans.

And trust me, folks. The people who work for Disney Consumer Products are not happy that "The Good Dinosaur" has been pushed back from May of 2014 to November of 2015. If only because this now means that "The Good Dinosaur" will be following "Jurassic World" (which is supposed to be released on June 12, 2015) into theaters.

"And what's so bad about that?," you ask. Well, in the brick-and-mortal retail world, there are only some many endcaps, so much shelf space to go around. And if WalMart &Target already have a ton of "Jurassic World" material that they're still trying to sell off / get rid of by the late Summer / early Fall of 2015 ... Well, that then might mean that they'll be a bit conservative when it comes to ordering "Good Dinosaur" toys. Which -- again -- could have a significant ripple effect / negative impact on DCP's overall earnings for late 2015 / early 2016. Not to mention the hole that pushing the release of this Pixar production back 18 months is going to put in Consumer Product's financial projections for the end of fiscal 2014.

And then -- provided that the current average wait time between a film's theatrical-release and then the DVD & Blu-ray release of this same film holds -- "Jurassic World" should be hitting store shelves during the first week of October 2015. Which is just seven weeks or so before "The Good Dinosaur" opens in theaters.

Now let me make a prediction here (which -- I know -- on the face of it will initially sound very dumb. But this is how the media works these days): In the weeks out ahead of "The Good Dinosaur" being released to theaters, you're going to see a number of stories in the entertainment press about whether moviegoers will actually buy tickets for a second dinosaur film less than six months after "Jurassic World" opened in theaters.

And let me make a second prediction here. In those articles which ask "Will 'Jurassic World' 's success at the box office undercut ticket sales for 'The Good Dinosaur' ?," you're going to see lot of these same authors pointing to how "Olympus Has Fallen" supposedly undercut "White House Down" 's ticket sales this past summer.

Anyway ... Enough with the bad news: Let's talk about the movies that will most likely benefit from Disney's decision to push back the release date of "The Good Dinosaur." These include the two animated features that will now be opening ahead of the release date that this Pixar production just vacated -- "Rio 2" (which opens in theaters on April 11th) and "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return"(which opens in theaters on May 9th) -- as well as the DreamWorks Animation film that was originally supposed to bow two weeks after "The Good Dinosaur," "How to Train Your Dragon 2" (which opens in theaters on June 13th).

Oddly enough, another movie will probably benefit from this Pixar production's postponement is "Planes: Fire and Rescue." The sequel to Disney "Planes" (which -- to date -- has earned $83.3 million domestically and an additional $55.8 million overseas) is slated to be released to theaters on July 18, 2014. And given that the Marketing department at Walt Disney Studios will no longer have a Pixar production to hype in the late Spring / early Summer of 2014, you can expect that "Planes: Fire and Rescue" will now get a full court press. So it will be interesting -- what with all of the additional marketing that the Mouse can now be expected to do for this DisneyToon Studios production -- to see how "Fire and Rescue" 's grosses compare with the original "Planes" box office totals this time next year.

Also, it's worth noting here that pushing back "The Good Dinosaur" by a year may actually wind up being a good thing. Not only because it will then give the folks up in Emeryville the time that they need to fix this film's story. But also because (to borrow that old cliché) absence sometimes does actually make the heart grow fonder.

To explain: There are those who study Hollywood history who suggest that one of the main reasons that "The Lion King " racked up such huge numbers at the box office during the Summer of 1994 (i.e., $312.8 million domestic ) was because it had been over 18 months at that point since the last Walt Disney Animations Studios production, "Aladdin ," had been released to theaters (And just in case you were wondering: That Ron Clements / John Musker movie was released to theaters back in November of 1992. And "Aladdin" earned $217.3 million domestically, $286.7 million overseas for a combined worldwide box office total of $504 million).

At the very least, it doesn't look like an 18 month delay will have all that much of a negative impact on "The Good Dinosaur" 's box office potential. Looking back on the last time something like this happened (i.e., there was a year-and-a-half long gap between the November 2004 release of "The Incredibles " and the June 2006 release of "Cars "), Brad Bird's superhero saga made $261.4 million domestic, $370 million overseas for a grand total of $631.4 million worldwide. Whereas John Lasseter's tribute to small town living sold $244.0 million worth of tickets stateside, $217 million to foreign filmgoers. With "Cars" combined worldwide box office totals coming in at $461.9 million.

So long story short: If "The Good Dinosaur" worldwide box office totals are eventually on par with "The Incredibles" & "Cars," no one has to worry about Pixar Animation Studios becoming extinct anytime soon.

In the meantime, here's hoping that the folks up in Emeryville who have been tasked with fixing "The Good Dinosaur" get a handle on this film's story problems very, very soon. Because -- based on the concept art that's already out there -- there are already a lot of little kids around the world who'd love to get their hands on an Arlo & Spot plush.

UPDATE: And in the 24 hours since this story was originally posted on JHM, Walt Disney Studios has made further adjustments to its theatrical release schedule for 2014, 2015 and 2016 to compensate for "The Good Dinosaur" being shifted from May of 2014 to November of 2015. Disney "Maleficent" -- which was originally supposed to be released on July 2, 2014 -- will now open in theaters in the "Good Dinosaur" 's old slot, May 30, 2014. Meanwhile, because the "Good Dinosaur" is now supposed to open in theaters on the date that was originally reserved for "Finding Dory," the release date of this Andrew Stanton film has been pushed back to June 17, 2016.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Given that -- at the D23 EXPO -- Pixar's reps eluded to the fact that they were already in the process of overhauling the storyline of this "Finding Nemo" follow-up. That -- after a screening of "Blackfish" on the Emeryville campus -- Stanton & his production team were no longer comfortable with setting this sequel in a SeaWorld-like park where the animals are kept in tanks & cages. So now, Pixar's in the process of rewriting "Finding Dory" storyline so that the fish who are on display at this seaside theme park can come & go as they please. If they want to do that, that is.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is listing Toy Story 4 as being in development at Pixar for release in 2015.

While IMDb can be grossly inaccurate, the listing of a Pixar project usually foreruns the proper announcement. For example, "Monsters, Inc. 2" was listed nearly a year before Monsters University was revealed.

More importantly, this comes on the heels of Tom Hanks' authoritative comments last month that he 'understands Toy Story 4 is happening'.

Are you ready for another big screen adventure with Andy's Bonnie's toys?

Marc Graser wrote:In its 19-year history, Pixar Animation Studios has largely avoided making sequels — of the 14 films it’s released since 1995, only four feature the same characters in follow-ups.

Yet with Thursday’s announcement that Disney will release “Toy Story 4,” on June 16, 2017, Pixar now has four new sequels planned over the next several years as the Mouse House looks to add more heft to its record fiscal earnings.

In addition to a fourth “Toy Story,” the Emeryville,Ca.-based company has “Finding Dory,” “Cars 3″ and “The Incredibles 2″ in the works.

The first, “Finding Dory,” a sequel to the 2003 hit “Finding Nemo,” will be released on June 17, 2016. The next “Cars” and “Incredibles” are not yet dated, but Pixar already has planted its flag on Nov. 22, 2017, and June 15, 2018 for untitled pics.

It’s unclear whether Disney will move forward with another “Planes,” a spinoff of Pixar’s “Cars” franchise. DisneyToon Studios produced “Planes,” a film originally planned for homevideo platforms, that was released in theaters in 2013, flying away with nearly $220 million at the worldwide box office. Its sequel “Planes: Fire & Rescue” came out this summer, but was grounded with landed with $139 million.

Pixar is still betting on original productions. In fact, it has two new properties — “Inside Out” and “The Good Dinosaur” — bowing in 2015, the first time it will release two films in a year, introducing new worlds and characters.

It also has two more movies dated for 2017, and one so far for 2016. Another new property is one based on Dia de los Muertos.

Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios and DisneyToon Studios has said that creatively, it is important for the company to produce one original film a year, with a sequel planned for every other year.

But as Disney puts more emphasis on branded fare, keeping its popular characters fresh in moviegoers’ minds through new toons may be unavoidable.

This year alone, Walt Disney Co. chief Bob Iger has personally announced three new Pixar sequels — “Cars 3,” “The Incredibles 2″ and “Toy Story 4″ — during meetings with shareholders and Wall Street analysts.

“As you know ‘Toy Story 3′ was a tremendous success generating wide critical acclaim as well as more than $1 billion in global box office and almost $10 billion in retail sales demonstrating that these wonderful characters are clearly just as relevant and beloved as ever,” Iger said on Thursday.

But the focus for Disney isn’t just on the box office.

Disney is keen on exploiting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Disney’s franchises through every division at the company. A sequel for “Cars” was greenlit, in part, because of robust sales of toy cars and other licensed merchandise tied to the film, especially among young boys.

“In fiscal ’14, we had 11 franchises drive more than $1 billion each in retail sales and more than half of them originated from our studio,” Iger told analysts. “We are releasing a total of 21 tentpole movies under our great banner brands over the next three years compared to only 13 in the last three. While there is no sure thing in a creative business, we believe the proven appeal of our brands and franchises reduces risk and maximizes our unique ability to create significant long-term value by leveraging successful content across our diverse array of businesses.”

Yet the box office can hardly be ignored, with sequels outperforming new films, thanks mostly to the established characters.

Pixar’s last three original movies, “Brave,” “Up” and “Wall-E,” earned a collective $1.8 billion worldwide. Its last three sequels, “Monsters University” (technically, a prequel) “Cars 2″ and “Toy Story 3,” hauled in $2.3 billion.

Angie Han wrote:Toy Story 3 felt like such a perfect capper to Woody and Buzz’s journey that we couldn’t help but wonder why Pixar felt the need to retread old territory with the upcoming Toy Story 4. But it turns out that’s not what Pixar has in mind at all.

In a new interview, studio president Jim Morris reveals that the next film will take things in a very different direction, which may or may not be continued in future installments. More on the new Toy Story 4 details after the jump.

In an interview for Disney Latino, Morris said although Toy Story 4 picks up after Toy Story 3 left off, it isn’t a continuation of the earlier trilogy. (Note: All quotes below have been translated by Google from Spanish to English, and then edited for clarity by me.) He explained:

The third movie ended in a beautiful way and completed a trilogy. I think this movie is not part of this trilogy. It is a separate story, which in turn I do not know if will be continued. Never begin a project with that in mind.

So what will this separate story be, exactly? Morris offered some vague hints:

It is not a continuation of the end of the story of Toy Story 3. Temporarily it is, but it will be a love story. It will be a romantic comedy. It will not put much focus on the interaction between the characters and children. I think it will be a very good movie.

The romcom angle is a new one for the franchise, but it’s the other reveal that really sets Toy Story 4 apart from previous installments. Woody and Andy’s evolving relationship was a crucial element of the first three Toy Story films. The next film sounds more in the vein of the shorts and specials, in which the toys are mostly left to their own devices.

Morris stated the film is currently around the position of being in its third table read, and says the script is “evolving very well.” He also reiterated that they aren’t making Toy Story 4 for the money, but because they came up with an “irresistible” idea. “The decision to make a second or third [installment] entirely depends on how passionate the director of the project is,” he said.

As previously reported, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Lee Unkrich dreamed up the story, and Rashida Jones and Will McCormack are writing the script. Jones and McCormack are new to Pixar, but know their way around love stories — they previously scripted the breakup dramedy Celeste and Jesse Forever.

Lasseter is directing Toy Story 4, which is due to be released June 16, 2017.

Charles Solomon wrote:Cooley, who served as the head of story on Pixar’s “Inside Out,” the most eagerly anticipated animated film of 2015, was recently named John Lasseter’s co-director for “Toy Story 4,” the most eagerly anticipated animated film of 2017.

Cooley, who just finished directing a short film set in the world of “Inside Out” that will be on the Blu-ray, began at Pixar as an intern in the story department on “Cars.” He was chosen for that spot by the late Joe Ranft, probably the finest animation storyman of his generation.

“Joe singled out Josh Cooley as a guy with potential, and Joe knew how to pick ‘em,” says “Inside Out” director Pete Docter. “Josh is funny, unique and collaborative. And funny.”

While working on “Inside Out,” Cooley tried to follow Ranft’s example. “On ‘Cars,’ Joe always said about the story, ‘It’s the journey, not just the destination.’ He brought the same attitude to running the department: It’s working together and collaborating with everybody that’s the real treat.”

Turning to his new assignment, Cooley adds, “To be co-director on ‘Toy Story 4’ with John, who brought the ‘Toy Story’ characters to the screen 20 years ago, is a dream come true.

“When I first saw ‘Toy Story’ I was amazed by the groundbreaking computer-generated animation. But it was the strong storytelling that kept me coming back. ‘Toy Story 4’ will continue that tradition and I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of it!”

LEXI PANDELL wrote:IN THE MAZE of offices at Pixar’s Emeryville, California, headquarters, the lighting section stands out. Overhead bulbs are dimmed—all the better for viewing nuanced effects on computer screens—except for a string of gentle white lights at the front, illuminating the dark blue walls. Sharon Calahan, the director of photography for Pixar’s upcoming movie, The Good Dinosaur, has an office nestled in the corner. Calahan is attentive and soft-spoken, warm and smiley under a curtain of bangs. It’s easy to picture her in the mountains, where she spends all her vacation time painting lighting studies of trees, valleys, and skies. A small stack of canvases leans against the wall beside her desk.

Spend time at Pixar and you’ll hear a regular refrain: The famed animation house wants its films to seem more like live-action flicks than cartoons. Executing that pursuit falls to crew members like Calahan. Though she deals mostly in pixels—she’s one of the rare DPs whose entire body of work is computer-generated—it’s still her job to build a believable (and believably lit) world.

Calahan thinks of each new project at Pixar as a unique stylistic challenge. Ratatouille was “soft and warm and romantic,” she says; Cars 2, which she worked on next, was “a guys’ film with shiny metal.” With The Good Dinosaur, out Thanksgiving Day, Calahan got to spend time in her happy place: open, natural landscapes.

The movie is set in a world where the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs never struck and prehistoric creatures live on Earth with people. It’s the story of Arlo, an apatosaurus who gets lost and on his journey home befriends a human named Spot.

When the director of The Good Dinosaur, Peter Sohn, told Calahan he wanted the film to have a rugged, pioneer feel, she already had a place in mind: Jackson, Wyoming, where she’d spent time painting landscapes. Calahan joined the crew there on a scouting trip so they could soak up the region’s treacherous terrain, severe weather, and expansive sky. Starting north, they boated down the Snake River, explored canyons, rode through the Targhee wilderness, and gazed at the Milky Way (sans light pollution).

“Pete hadn’t spent much time in an area like that, and I watched him discover that world: how harsh it can be, how the weather turns on a dime, how rugged everything is, how short the growing season is, and how much early settlers there must have struggled to survive,” Calahan says. “It inspired him to find the tone of the film. He wanted that big-sky feeling—when there’s low moisture in the air, you really can see for miles.”

Calahan’s day-to-day contributions on a film are similar to those of a live-action director of photography. Early in preproduction, she looks at storyboards and composes paintings to inspire tone, feel, and the general look of the film. From there, she pitches ideas, asks for shots to be recomposed, and explores lighting options for each scene. Her weeks eventually turn into a flurry of art and set reviews, lighting walk-throughs, director check-ins, color grading, and effects critiques, all while overseeing her nearly 50-person lighting department for this movie.

As inspiration for production on The Good Dinosaur, the crew watched dozens of films: classic Westerns for mood and story; Seven Years in Tibet and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for scope and camera work; and Carroll Ballard’s The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf for tone. Because The Good Dinosaur is highly visual, with color and light playing a large supporting role, Calahan also revisited some of her favorite Russian landscape paintings, like the moody, evocative works of Ivan Shishkin and Isaac Levitan. “There’s a truth about their paintings that I like,” she says.

Calahan says the resulting look is authentic—but not exactly photo-realistic. “We want it to be believable that if Arlo fell and hit his knee, it would hurt,” she says of the titular good dinosaur. “That the water seems cold, that you can breathe the air and feel the wind.” But her background in fine arts taught her that not every detail is necessary: “I’m not trying to paint every blade of grass or every leaf. I’m trying to reduce things down to their essential elements and bigger shapes that hold the image together structurally.”

Because the film is set entirely outdoors—a first for Calahan—she had to ensure each scene would have a distinct look and feel. One solution was determining signature coloring and lighting styles: Scenes among trees dominated by brown and green hues are followed, for example, by alpine pools with a cool, blue palette. Calahan’s lighting in one moment might capture the feeling of a late afternoon; minutes later, a subtle change in intensity and shadowing has to telegraph the turn to dusk.

Calahan made compositional changes as well. Typically, CG films build out the foreground of scenes, relying on matte paint for the background. But because The Good Dinosaur relies so heavily on a sense of place, her team created individual volumetric clouds and used USGS data to expand the geographical detail. To add to that feeling of vastness, they chose wide framing, with more helicopter-style shots than normal.

After countless refinements from different departments, Calahan helped decide when scenes were ready to be cut into the film. “I’m trying to capture a certain emotion,” she says. “I want it to make me homesick, in a way.”

Though Calahan has been with Pixar since Toy Story, her foray into film was largely accidental. She studied advertising and graphics and then entered the television industry making commercials. From there, it was a slow evolution. “I kept walking through open doors,” she says. After a coworker joined Pixar, Calahan snagged an interview and was hired as a lighting supervisor.

Over her 21 years at the studio, the nature of Calahan’s work has changed. When she started out, creating light in a scene meant writing script code. Now, advanced user interfaces and improved design programs mean Calahan and her team can create complicated lighting faster—the saved time is invested in making subtler, more complex films. Calahan is still a rare bird in the film business. Few people share her title in the animation industry, and when the American Society of Cinematographers invited her to join its ranks last year, she became its first member to have an all-CG reel.

One of her sponsors for ASC membership, the cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (The Help, Lethal Weapon), says traditional cinematography entails physical work on location, and that some society members initially didn’t understand Calahan’s process. “She has her own problems to deal with, technically and logistically, which just happen to be inside a studio,” he says. “The lighting, color, texture, how much light or how little light, the mood, the haze, the smoke are all introduced like in the work I do. She just does it with tools that simulate that infusion. What I admire in her work is what I admire in Vittorio Storaro’s work or any great cinematographer’s work—in the end, it’s irrelevant how it’s produced.”

Calahan hopes her acceptance might influence aspiring artists to follow her path, though it might not happen overnight. “It was something I’d dreamed about,” she says. “Change is hard. What I do is different than live-action, but there’s so much of it that’s the same. There’s still a newness to it all.”

Harry wrote:You will find yourself at a Marine Institute Touristy style, and I came home after the screening to crack open my JAWS 3 3D Blu – and I can report… these are two sequels to massive brilliant original films, that also take place in touristy marine institutes in 3D… and when I went into FINDING DORY, I was wearing my Sushi Patterned Shirt, and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the film.

Wait till you meet the Octopus in this friggin movie! The whole time I was thinking about that crazy true story about the escaped Octopus that was all over the net a while back, I loved that story. I think this Octopus has to be the smartest Octopus around.

Michael Howe wrote:"Next I hope to see Andrew Stanton doing another chapter of JOHN CARTER though."

I still feel this film exists because of "John Carter."

Basically, Stanton's career at Disney was in jeopardy after audiences didn't show, so "Dory" was the one way to soften the company from throwing him under the bus.

Nasty In The Pasty wrote:I've always felt this, from the second Finding Dory was announced (barely months after John Carter imploded at the box office). Thankfully Dory turned out to be charming and a worthy sequel, but it *was* made solely so Stanton could salvage his career. See also Brad Bird announcing he would FINALLY make that long-awaited Incredibles sequel...immediately after his equally expensive, self-indulgent Disney Bomb Tomorrowland crashed and burned.

I really hated the first Cars movie....before I ever saw it. I was just sick of NASCAR culture and was pissed that there was a Pixar film glorifying it. But then I watched the film and really enjoyed it. The story was sweet and the animation was fantastic.

Cars 2 was a piece of shit. I mean it might as well been called "Cars 2: The $ellout" because that's what they did with the franchise at that point. They chose the lowest denominator of the first film and wrapped the entire sequel around it. Story and character drove the first film. Mater and merchandise drove the second film.

I am extremely intrigued by this trailer. The animation looks amazing - a new era of animation quality for Pixar? And they have returned to the first film's roots - racing. I just hope the film is good. I'm sure the criticism of Cars 2 was hanging over their heads the entire time.....at least, I hope it was.

Achievement Unlocked: TOTAL DOMINATION (Win a Werewolf Game without losing a single player on your team)

Jack Giroux wrote:During D23 today, Pixar Animation announced a new animated project from the team behind Monsters University. The project is slotted for either 2020 0r 2021 – one of the dates Disney has claimed – and takes place in a “suburban fantasy world.” The untitled film is set in a world that doesn’t feel unfamiliar to our own, based on editor-in-chief Peter Sciretta’s description of what he saw and heard, but technology has taken over in a land of fantastical creatures and old magic.

There are elves, trolls, dragons, and unicorns in the untitled Pixar film. On the poster, there’s a red dragon flying in a purple sunset sky above a city. “This film takes place in a fantasy world, but a modern fantasy world,” Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter told the crowd. “Magic used to exist, but it was too difficult to do. Unicorns are everywhere, they are basically rodents.” In this world, the unicorns eat out of the trash like possums.

Dan Scanlon who co-directed Monsters University, is directing this film. For Scanlon, his next collaboration with the animation company is very personal. When he was young, his father passed away. He saw photos and videos of him, but he and his younger brother never heard his voice until later on in their lives. When Scanlon was a teenager, he was sent a cassette tape by a family member featuring his father’s voice. All his father said on the recording was “bye,” but Scanlon said it felt like magic to him and his brother.

The experienced inspired the suburban fantasy film, which is about two teenage brothers who lose their father. They travel to a fantasy world in hopes of finding him, to spend one last day with him. The brief description out of D23 is very vague, but perhaps magic plays a role in the boys’ quest to spend another day with their father. Scanlon’s question of who his father was is the basis for the movie.

Scanlon plans on mixing the fantastical with the mundane, as the world has lost interest in magic in the untitled film. Because magic is too hard to pull off, the inhabitants of the world simply stopped caring. There are no other details beyond the few story points, including a release date, but presumably, we’ll know a whole more about this film soon enough.

Antonia Blyth wrote:Animation boss John Lassiter also announced that Disneytoon Studios has set an untitled movie for 2019 that revolves around an evil space shuttle and two friendly fighter jets. The premise sounds a bit like a sequel to Disney’s 2013 toon Planes, though Lasseter did not say so. The movie is set for an early-2019 release.

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Kim Masters wrote:Rashida Jones is still credited as a writer on Toy Story 4, the next installment in the beloved franchise. But, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter, the actress and her writing partner at the time, Will McCormack, left the project early on after John Lasseter, the acclaimed head of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, made an unwanted advance.

Jones and McCormack did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Disney declined to comment on the alleged incident though a studio source said the departure was over "creative differences." Multiple sources spoke with THR but asked not to be named out of fear that their careers in the tight-knit animation community would be damaged.

Based on the accounts of former Pixar insiders as well as sources in the animation community, the alleged incident was not an isolated occurrence. One longtime Pixar employee says Lasseter, who is well-known for hugging employees and others in the entertainment community, was also known by insiders for "grabbing, kissing, making comments about physical attributes." Multiple sources say Lasseter is known to drink heavily at company social events such as premiere parties, but this source says the behavior was not always confined to such settings.

Now Lasseter is taking a leave of absence from Pixar after acknowledging "painful" conversations and unspecified "missteps," he wrote in a memo to staff on Tuesday. The leave is said to be for six months, a source tells THR.

"I have always wanted our animation studios to be places where creators can explore their vision with the support and collaboration of other gifted animators and storytellers," Lasseter stated. "This kind of creative culture takes constant vigilance to maintain. It's built on trust and respect, and it becomes fragile if any members of the team don't feel valued. As a leader, it's my responsibility to ensure that doesn't happen; and I now believe I have been falling short in this regard."

The executive added: "I've recently had a number of difficult conversations that have been very painful for me. It's never easy to face your missteps, but it's the only way to learn from them."

It is hard to overstate Lasseter's value to Disney. He is known as the genius behind Pixar films from Toy Story to Inside Out to Coco, opening Nov. 22. He took charge of Walt Disney Animation in 2006 and led a revival that included such gigantic hits as Frozen.

Sources say some women at Pixar knew to turn their heads quickly when encountering him to avoid his kisses. Some used a move they called "the Lasseter" to prevent their boss from putting his hands on their legs.

A longtime insider says he saw a woman seated next to Lasseter in a meeting that occurred more than 15 years ago. "She was bent over and [had her arm] across her thigh," he says. "The best I can describe it is as a defensive posture ... John had his hand on her knee, though, moving around." After that encounter, this person asked the woman about what he had seen. "She said it was unfortunate for her to wear a skirt that day and if she didn't have her hand on her own right leg, his hand would have traveled."

The same source said he once noticed an oddly cropped photo of Lasseter standing between two women at a company function. When he mentioned that to a colleague, he was told, "We had to crop it. Do you know where his hands were?"

Another former insider remembers awkward encounters with Lasseter, who liked — as many in the industry do — to hug in meetings. "You'd hug him and he'd whisper in your ear, a long time," this person says. "He hugged and hugged and everyone's looking at you. Just invading the space."

Disney's statement regarding Lasseter's leave of absence read, "We are committed to maintaining an environment in which all employees are respected and empowered to do their best work. We appreciate John’s candor and sincere apology and fully support his sabbatical."

Lasseter is best known as one of the founders of Pixar, which began as a part of the graphics group at Lucasfilm. Along with Ed Catmull, he popularized CGI in animation with early films like Monsters Inc. In 2006, after Disney purchased Pixar, Lasseter was named the chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has since become the face of all Disney animation, overseeing the recent resurgence of the studio's namesake brand with properties like Frozen and Moana.

While Lasseter has won two Oscars (one is a specialty Oscar for his work on Toy Story), Pixar has racked up eight best animated feature wins. Under Lasseter's purview, WDA has picked up three wins, most recently with 2016's Zootopia.

Pixar films have grossed over $6 billion at the domestic box office. The Emeryville-based company is set to release its next feature, Coco, on Wednesday. Pixar is currently working on a sequel to The Incredibles and the fourth Toy Story installment. WDA will release the Wreck It Ralph sequel next year.

A former Pixar employee requesting anonymity says Lasseter's leave of absence statement is "ridiculous" and "trivializing this behavior." The employee adds, "To sum this up as unwanted hugs is belittling and demeaning. If it was just unwanted hugs, he wouldn't be stepping down."